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The Savanna Syndrome: Inside the Wild World of Tennis Parents
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Mar 17 2026
Pages: 114
Weight: 0.36
Height: 0.27 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
You're not coaching. You're just... watching.
Every Saturday morning, thousands of parents load up the car, pour coffee into a cracked travel mug, and tell themselves the same lie: I'm just here to support her.
Maren Siemers believed it too. For about five minutes.
In The Savanna Syndrome, she maps the wild, absurd, and deeply human territory of tennis parenthood - from sideline stare-downs and ranking-spiral midnight sessions, to the moment her twelve-year-old looked her in the eye and said: When you're that tense, I feel like I have to save you too.
This is a book about ambition and love, and how hard it is to tell them apart. It's about the coach who speaks in nods, the sibling who quietly eats her waffle, the father who tracks every match in Excel but can't find words when she loses. It's about a mother who wanted too much - and slowly, imperfectly, learned to want differently.
Honest. Funny. Uncomfortably recognizable.
For every parent who's ever whispered a pep talk from a folding chair - and pretended they didn't.
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